Is There a Gender Bias in Creative Evaluations?

Creativity has become an increasingly important skill in today’s world. Because society increasingly values creativity, it is critical that women and men are evaluated equally in terms of their creative output. Unfortunately, previous research indicates that men tend to be perceived as more creative compared to women. The present study investigates this phenomenon further by examining whether participants view the same exact ideas as more creative when they come from a man compared to when they come from a woman. To test our hypothesis, participants will be given a vignette scenario that poses an ambiguous problem. Participants will be given eight solutions to this problem that have been previously rated as highly creative by experts. Four of these solutions will be labeled with a male name (i.e., Dominic, Ethan) and the other four solutions will be labeled with a female name (i.e., Margaret, Karen). Participants will be asked to select one of eight solutions that they find to be the most creative, as well as asked to select one of the eight solutions that they think would best solve the problem. The implications of this research may help us further understand a gender bias in evaluations of creative work